Difficult Decisions Made At City Clinic

Abortion Drama Unfolds Inside, Outside Court

Abortion Drama Unfolds Inside, Outside Court Chambers

It was a few minutes before 10 a.m. and inside the otherwise silent chamber, Kathryn Kolbert was beginning to tell the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court that they should reject a Pennsylvania law that has placed significant restrictions on abortion.

Four hundred miles away, Helen Cyr was standing at her post outside the Hartford Gynecological Center on Retreat Avenue, flagging down a red Ford Escort in the raw gray drizzle as it entered the abortion clinic parking lot.

Cyr was trying to make a "save" -- trying to persuade the car's occupants to turn around and have the baby.

At just that moment, inside the gray two-story Victorian building that houses the clinic, several women, one crying, one trembling, were going ahead with abortions, despite the pleas of Cyr and two other protesters outside.

One, a single parent whose fiance had just abandoned her, said she could not have another child. She had only so much time, so much energy, she said, for the child she already has -- a child who is mentally retarded.

The world of abortion is marked each day, in Hartford and across the nation, by agonizing decisions by women and their partners who discover pregnancies they had not planned, decisions about deformed fetuses they fear they cannot care for, decisions to continue pregnancies and have babies even under difficult circumstances.

For one hour Wednesday morning, the issue was focused anew. The highest court in the nation began to sort through what could be a landmark ruling cutting back on abortion rights.

But while the justices listened, the world did not stop. On Retreat Avenue in Hartford, inside and outside the clinic, the passion and the pain proceeded.

Kolbert, a short, slight, dark-haired Pennsylvania lawyer, was in hostile territory. She was inside the white, marble-pillared temple of justice representing the American Civil Liberties Union

and abortion-rights groups across the country.

Before her sat nine justices, only one of them a woman, many of whom have in previous decisions given every reason to believe they are prepared to heed abortion opponents' calls to protect "the unborn."

Only two sat on this bench in 1973 when the court produced Roe vs. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion. Since then, six have been appointed by anti-abortion Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

The Pennsylvania law they were considering raised compelling questions.

Was it justice to send women to jail for failing to tell their husbands they are having an abortion? Could women be forced to tell their spouses or parents they wanted an abortion? Could states prevent women from having an abortion unless they agreed to a 24-hour wait? Could a doctor be forced to offer information to counter a woman's decision to have an abortion?

It was 10 a.m. and Kolbert had only just begun to address those torturous questions. The nine figures in black robes stared down at her.

She tried to frame the issue for the justices in a way that favored her side. It is not about abortion, she told them. The question is whether it is legal "to force a woman to continue or end her pregnancy against her will."

As Kolbert spoke, Deborah, a 28-year-old woman from Eastern Connecticut who asked that her real name not be used, sat in the clinic waiting room.

There since 9 a.m., she had given a urine sample and had her blood drawn. She had met with a counselor and had heard the procedure explained.

Now, she was trembling.

Only two weeks before, her fiance called off their planned May 2 wedding and moved south.

She sat there, three months pregnant, the mother of a 14-month-old retarded daughter, with a full-time job.

"I just can't do it by myself, not with my daughter's handicap," she said, her blue eyes welling with tears. "I feel horrible enough that I don't have enough time with her now," she whispered, her face drawn. "If there were two of us it would be different."

A Roman Catholic, Deborah agonized over this abortion for two weeks. She called the clinic Monday.

"I didn't want to do it over the Easter weekend," she said, her voice faltering. "The holiest day of the year."

At that moment, outside, Helen Cyr was very pleased.

The high court was not expected to rule until July, but she was already enjoying a small, sweet victory. She had just made a "save."

Even before the driver of the Ford had rolled down his window, the 69-year-old veteran of the anti-abortion movement had gone into her litany.

"We'll help you save the baby. Birthright will help you save the baby," she had told him. "Abortion -- that's not the answer to a problem. That's not the answer. You'd be despondent the rest of

your life."

The driver, a young man with curly black hair, had listened thoughtfully.